updated 04:00 pm EST, Fri December 5, 2008

300M+ App Store downloads

Apple has served over 300 million downloads through the iTunes App Store, a new print ad from the company claims. Published in the New York Times, the ad also observes that there are now over 10,000 different apps, a twentyfold increase over the 500 that heralded the App Store's debut. The total downloads figure is believed to be the most important, however, as during its October conference call, Apple announced that it was on the verge of reaching 200 million downloads. This means that the company processed approximately 100 million more transfers in the space of six weeks.

CNBC argues that this should deflate speculation that downloads would decrease rapidly in the weeks after the launch of both of the App Store and the iPhone 3G. The pace of App Store growth is in fact said to be quickening, which Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster suggests will produce a market worth $1 billion in 2009, diverting $300 million in revenue towards Apple.

We recently bought 2 Touch's for Christmas and I've started "playing" with them... setting things up for my kids. They are the coolest things since sliced bread! I enjoy browsing the App Store and installing/trying out new apps. Most are free but I've bought a few as well.

I hope the iPod Touch grows into a communications device as well as the internet/gaming device it already is!

The next version needs to have a built-in camera, microphone, and GPS while offering some legitimate VoIP software solution (maybe partnering with Vonage). I know this will compete with the iPhone even more and tick off the carriers somewhat... but it needs to be done!

Hopefully Apple will not only revolutionize the mobile phone, but also shatter the carrier's hold on this market.

Re: eldarkusPoint taken. I don't commonly scan Apple financials, so if the data shows up there maybe the point is moot and testicles is spouting gibberish as per usual. I know people on these boards often get on Micro$oft when they talk about the take up of Win-dohs Vista, but maybe Micro$oft doesn't differentiate between purchased copies and pre-installed software in their stats. Maybe Apple makes those break downs. I will leave that assessment to more knowledgeable heads. However, having the downloads broken down into the subcategories noted by testicles would be useful and interesting data nonetheless.

Apple will discuss finances at quarterly meetings. Wanna know how much? Wait until the next one. That is if they even post such small statistics

Well, they discuss whatever financial matters they deem worthy of discussing. AppStore purchases will be broken out, if the numbers look good. Otherwise, it'll be grouped in with iTMS purchases.

Just like the AppleTV, which is still categorized in Apple's filings as an iPod accessory.

and for the record.. a download is a download. If Apple has 300 million downloads, then you bet that it's each time a person has downloaded something from the store.

Right, and that's my point. Stupid statistics like "web site hits" and "downloads" are completely misleading. h***, MSN used to be up there in web site hits, mainly because PCs would use it as their default home page, and most never changed it.

The implication of 300 mil downloads is that Apple is raking in the money. Some people may not realize that a download is just a download, or a re-download, or a free-app, or half is just from updates to software. In fact, since they say nothing about the type, it could be that half were being downloaded by MS so they could try to reverse engineer the API or something (yes, sure, the SDK is free, but that would be giving them the credit of knowing they could download that).